As is known in the art, mechanically and electro-mechanically operated door assemblies serve an important function at both commercial and residential sites, ensuring that personnel and/or visitors who are not authorized to access the particular premises are restricted from such access, while concomitantly providing access to authorized parties. Either an unauthorized access or an unintended refusal of access can have financial consequences and/or cause delay and disruption in service or result in unwanted inconvenience. Thus, when conditions and/or persons having physical access to a dwelling or restricted items within the dwelling change dynamically, access management becomes an important priority.
The use of electronic and/or mechanical door locking systems for the control and operation of the door is becoming increasingly commonplace. One such known device is a conventional dead bolt assembly employing solely mechanical components. As is known in the art, a typical single cylinder dead bolt assembly has an exterior cylinder lock that typically accepts a key to actuate the internal bolt mechanism and an interior manual twist knob that is also used to actuate the bolt mechanism. The cylinder lock and the manual knob are both centrally located and are directly coupled with the deadbolt mechanism. In double cylinder assemblies, the deadbolt accepts a key on both sides and therefore does not require and often does not have any twist knob.
Current electronic dead bolt assemblies closely follow the above construction in that there is typically an outer or exterior cylinder lock and an interior manual knob augmented with a secondary motor drive and possibly an input device for entering selected information, such as a PIN. A disadvantage of this prior art configuration is that it compels current electronic lock manufacturers to create additional “real-estate” in the lock assembly to accommodate the additional structure that is necessary to operate the electronic door lock. Consequently, the prior art devices are quite large and hence conspicuous when mounted on the door assembly, thus affecting the overall aesthetic appeal of the room, while concomitantly providing limited operational functionality.
Many other known security devices and systems for use in securing access to a facility also require passwords, key codes, biometric data or other inputs to allow a user to control or access such a device or system. Such devices and systems often employ a local control panel or proprietary control software that is run on a local computer or web server. Each device or system has its own hardware or software control interface. As a result of the disparate control systems and separate methods for granting permissions, it is often inconvenient for a user or administrator to access, program and control each security device or system efficiently. Furthermore, self-contained, on-site security systems or devices can be compromised or malfunction without being able to issue notification to an interested party.